Editing Corning, Ohio (section)

==History==
Originally named Ferrara, the town was focused on farming along the Sunday Creek Valley. That would change when the Atlantic and Lake Erie Railway completed the Moxahala tunnel in 1879. By 1880, Joseph Rodgers sold over 8,000 acres along Sunday Creek to the Ohio Central Coal Company. With New York capitalists investing heavily in the coal camp, the town was soon renamed Corning.<ref>{{cite book|last=Colborn|first=Ephraim S.|title=History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio: Their Past and Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4NUyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA222|year=1883|publisher=Brookhaven Press|page=222}}</ref>  A post office has been in operation at Corning since 1880.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?task=display&state=OH&county=Perry | title=Perry County | publisher=Jim Forte Postal History | accessdate=December 16, 2015}}</ref>
[[File:Battle of Corning Map.jpg|alt=Siemer, Jobie (2023). Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion Along Sunday Creek. [Unpublished Manuscript]|thumb|Battle of Corning, September 19, 1880<ref name=":0" />]]
Known as one of the most lawless towns in the state, Corning can only be compared to violent mining towns such as [[Tombstone, Arizona]], or [[Deadwood, South Dakota]]. In addition to shootouts and murders, Corning saw several violent events that made it famous.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Siemer |first=Jobie |title=Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion Along Sunday Creek |publisher=Unpublished Manuscript |year=2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=January 6, 1885 |title=Corning |work=Marion Daily Star}}</ref> On September 19, 1880, the Ohio National Guard battled white coal miners trying to force out newly arrived African American miners. The Battle of Corning, or the Corning War, was the first time the Ohio National Guard shed blood in defense of the state.<ref>Smith, Samuel. ''Annual Report of the Adjutant General, Ohio 1880.'' (Columbus: G. J. Brand & CO, 1881), 13.</ref>

In 1884, the town witnessed an Irish Catholic Feud between local parish Priest Father Bernard O’Boylan and saloon owner Andy McDevitt. Known as the Corning Church War, the feud gained national attention and grew Corning’s reputation.<ref>''New Lexington Tribune,'' March 6, 1884.</ref> After several mine strikes during the early 1890s, Corning served as the unofficial site of “insurgency” against the leadership of the newly formed [[United Mine Workers of America]].<ref name=":0" />

At a meeting between Ohio and West Virginia miners at the Mercer Hotel, Richard L. Davis, an African American miner and labor organizer from Rendville, was denied service at the restaurant. In 1895, the Mercer Hotel became the first Ohio business punished under the state’s anti-discrimination laws.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Richard L. Davis |url=https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Richard_L._Davis |access-date=July 8, 2023 |website=Ohio History Connrction}}</ref> The incident at the Mercer Hotel represented the “High Water Mark of the Color Line in Ohio,” establishing a boundary between acceptable and unacceptable segregation of African Americans across the state.<ref name=":0" />